We've just had a plastic lawn put in. AMA

[Imdunfer]

As title.

If you're going to raise climate issues please make sure you have your facts right before you post. There is a lot of incorrect PR and social media comment about plastic turf going around at the moment.

Mine still just use their litter trays. They never pee or poo in the garden.

Naw it disnae 😂
How does it feel with bare feet?

She isn't using it right now she prefers the bark in the borders. I don't see it being any more of a problem than grass, and if course it won't burn the grass yellow.

Lovely. Not unlike fairly strong grass. A lot better than thistles and mud.

Op at the start of the thread you said my post in harmful chemicals being absorbed by the skin or ingested hy children or animals was wrong. It was not.

i think it’s clear, you like it. And irs your house, the stuff isn’t yet illegal. So fair enough,

for most other people it is tacky and damaging for the environment, the whataboutary argument you pose, big cars, flights etc, doesn’t work those things have reasons behind them plastic grass never does.

the issue with plastic grass is like plastic straws. So much of it is what causes the damage not just one straw . Fortunately it has now reversed and people have realised why they should never do this, and yes it devalues your house, actively puts people off. but you’re not selling so doesn’t impact you.

there is no accounting for taste, the beauty in a lawn is the variations through the seasons. Yours will look like a perfect lawn from a distance, like something out the Truman show, but up close it will look like plastic.

sales of plastic grass have dropped by 50 percent and are still sharply declining and nearly 40 percent of the public actively want a full on ban of the stuff, it’s hugely contentious due to the environmental impact. And it’s escalating. As a world we are becoming more environmentally conscious. And things like not using plastic grass is a very easy fix.

i do hope you didn’t pay a lot of money for it. If you did you were ripped off. They are getting to thr stage they couldn’t even pay people to have it. Never mind pay through thr nose.

The changing of the seasons in the garden was marked by the ratios of moss, mud and weed

And anthills, @Imdunfer - don't forget the anthills!!

My own once-beautiful real lawn has been wrecked by them and it's cost a fortune to get it back ... something I often wonder about when looking at the excellent fake stuff which was already in situ at the house bought for my disabled son

You're not going to destroy the planet with a few square metres of the stuff, but what you have done is introduce one of the only things some MNers still see fit to judge. I wouldn't worry though; many will be off on gas guzzling summer journeys soon, so won't be around to see it

We have a north facing rear garden with 2 small lawns. Within 2 weeks of moving in our 2 dogs had turned it into a mud bath.

We wanted stone but couldn't afford it nor could we do it ourself.

So we put down fake grass, dug it and levelled it then sand and a membrane before the fake grass. It was a lot more work than we thought.

It drains fine, it's not boiling in summer. One day when we don't have dogs it will return to grass or we will put stone down.

When we do lift it I intend to burn it when the wind is blowing in the direction of our local infants school. Then throw the ashes at a nun.

These fake grass threads on here are so predictable.
Good fun though.

Sports pitches are also 100 metres long and worked to death by 25 or more people for hours a time.

The equivalent care of a few squares meters is nothing.

I'm just thinking of the wee bees and hoping to encourage other people not to follow suit but luckily most people seem to be against plastic lawns. We have 2 different species of bees making their homes in the outer part of our roof. Not ideal but we are cohabiting harmoniously. I've been learning a lot about bees recently (& other pollinators) with my primary twos. 😂

You’re missing the issue, if everyone did it, we’d be fucked. That’s why people are against it. We need to work together. Not be every man for himself

and again, it’s so tacky, it’s the crushed grey velvet sofa and mirrored furniture equivalent for your garden

I would miss bees and butterflies with that kind of garden. Even your plants are ceramic? 😵‍💫My in laws had artificial grass and it looked horrendous and was more difficult to maintain than just grass after a few years. They ripped it up in the end.

Op at the start of the thread you said my post in harmful chemicals being absorbed by the skin or ingested hy children or animals was wrong. It was not.

I don't believe that is wrong so I think it's unlikely that I wrote it.

I may have written that I don't think it's worth worrying about, and I don't.

A plastic lawn does not hold more water than a real lawn.

Grass plants are over 90% water and take up most of the water that falls on a lawn.

Some plastic grass is permeable in that rain passes through it via a series of holes. Only about 50% of the water goes through the holes - the rest runs off.

It's a shame we can't post their sad little faces on here, as they fly into the neighbouring gardens.

I don't think those fretting about resale value of OP's home need concern themselves too much about that. I don't get the impression OP is in a hurry to sell up and move.

@Imdunfer If it is only to look at, as you say, why did you choose plastic over something like ornamental mosses or bark with shade-loving, low-maintenance planted borders?

I can't understand how anyone could find lurid green plastic more visually appealing than nature.

I have checked my posts and I cannot find anything I have written along those lines.

Plastic lawns are basically the bad wigs of the garden-design world.

OP is just trolling, both in her post and, frankly, in installing a shite-looking, synthetic-smelling, soil-killing, wildlife-harming, heat-retaining (enjoy those 50 degree temps under foot during the escalating heatwaves that are the UK's ongoing reality) polypropylene/nylon outdoor carpet in her own back yard.

I'd feel sorry for her if she weren't revelling in her stupidity quite so much.

Your choice OP, but having worked on many 'few square metres' of plastic grass I can honestly say the maintenance is not nothing. Not if you want to keep it looking as it does now anyway.

A plastic lawn that has recently been rained on plus the soil beneath that lawn does hold onto water better than grass where it evaporates back off the surface. It is, after all, the principle reason why grass lawns stay cooler.

😅😂🤣😂😅

Oh ok was the last point you were disputing thay it always looks like plastic grass up close. It does op. This isn’t even subjective.

Bark and ferns would have looked amazing and thrived in the garden OP describes.

Can somebody more intelligent than me please explain how you can force somebody into being trolled on your own thread?

And what if they do? The absolute snobbery of looking down on people's homes just to make yourselves feel superior. I could ask to see your home choices, but frankly I don't need to criticise the imaginary furniture of a stranger to make myself feel happy. Also, the AMA was about the grass.